


A'a

by kaige68



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:03:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 14,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaige68/pseuds/kaige68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has come back from the crusades, Danny has been named Sheriff of Oahu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dapple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyn2deep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyn2deep/gifts).



> So many notes:
> 
> The idea is that Hawaii is actually part of Middle Ages England, but they speak with current American intonations and patterns, mostly. 
> 
> This was written for 1_million_word Word of the Day prompts for August 1st through 22nd. (Yeah, I'm behind. Surprise!)
> 
> Chapters range in rating from teenish to out right explicit for sex and death. Character deaths mentioned are in line with canon, and not really graphic, but better safe than sorry.
> 
> It has had a rough beta read, all remaining errors are due to my own stubbornness and excessive use of apostrophes. Tkeylasunset and Haldoor read through different chapters at different times, and are the most wonderful people in the world for doing so.
> 
> Also a thank you to Simplyn2deep for consistently wonderful prompts, and happy belated birthday!

The man was naked in the stream. Tall, dark, and Danny couldn’t give him handsome from the distance, but he presumed. He had marks on his skin. They weren’t dirt; they weren’t washing off. But if they were bruises, they were strange ones. Strangers with strange bruises meant trouble, and Danny, most definitely, did not recognize the man.

“You’re scaring the children!” Danny called out. The stranger looked up sharp. Too sharp. Danny caught that the hands moved to where weapons (plural weapons) would be if the man weren’t naked in a stream. To calm the man, to further see what kind of problem he was about to have on his hands, Danny went on. “Two girls saw you bellowing, stomping and _flailing like the Devil had caught you_.” Danny moved closer by a few feet, much more visible to the man.

He watched as his appearance was assessed. The man nodded, smiled slightly. “Bees,” he called out. “I was not paying attention, thought I knew the area better than I do, apparently. I must have stepped on a hive.” The man held his hands wide of his body, shrugged. It would have come across to most people as disarmed defeat.

Danny wasn’t fooled. The man as deadly, with or without weapons. “So you went for water and decided to bathe while you were wet?”

“It’s been a long trip. I decided that clean wouldn’t be a bad way to arrive home. And since I was wet...” He let the sentence fall.

Danny could see the man’s clothes where they were spread out on sunny rocks. An armory of weapons near them, but closer to the man and always within his sight. “Home?” Danny took a few steps closer. He was on the opposite side of the stream from the weapons, no real threat as the man could reach his sword before Danny reached the man. But Danny let his hand rest on the hilt of his own sword just the same.

“I was raised here. In the town where this stream joins the river.” He gestured in the direction that the water flowed. Toward the town well behind Danny. Precisely where Danny hoped the man wasn’t going.

“Things may have changed since you were last here. There is a small farm,” Danny motioned to his left. “They have two _impressionable_ daughters. I can’t say that O’Okala would appreciate the girls watching you bathe.”

“No.” The man laughed. “I’m sure he wouldn’t.” Danny watched the honed muscles move under the sun dappled skin. _As God intended,_ part of his brain intoned, and Danny tried to squash down his less than pious thoughts.

He moved closer as the man reached his personal arms. Danny looked at the bruises again. He could now see they were patterns. Not bruises at all, but ink, the likes of which Danny had only seen on men back from the crusades. That didn’t bode well.

“I don’t recognize you,” the man threw casually over his shoulder as he dressed.

Danny could tell he was still being sized up. “Daniel Williams. I am the Sheriff of Oahu.”

The man looked up from tying his pants. “The _new_ sheriff.” He qualified emphatically. “My father was sheriff here.”

“M’Garrett.” Somehow Danny had known all along. _Fuck!_


	2. Palindrome

“Was my father murdered?” They both walked alongside the sheriff’s horse. Steve didn’t miss that the man was taking him the long way, around the town, and around people who might recognize him.

“That?” The man looked at him with not a little bit of shock. “You just got back here from the Holy Land and _that_ is the first thing you say?”

“Bees was the first-”

The Sheriff made a quick hand gesture that stopped Steve and the man spoke again. “I have no real reason to believe that he was murdered.” Steve watched as the official seemed to sink in on himself.

“Does that mean you have an unreal reason?” The shorter man went back to his incredulous look. Steve turned away, stared off in the distance as they kept walking and asked another question. “Did you see his body?”

“No.” The answer was flat and unemotional. “He was still sheriff when he died. It was at least a month before I took his office.” They went on silently through the next fallow field. “I’m told that he died peacefully in his sleep.”

“And you believe that?” Steve practically yelled. 

“What reason do you have not to?” The voice on the other side of the horse was patient, adept at easing information from emotional people.

“My father wrote to me.”

When Steve didn’t say more, the sheriff spoke again. “I was told he could read and write well. Is it that surprising that he would write to you?”

“He told me...” Steve huffed and shook his head, only then wondering if it was a discussion he should be having with a perfect stranger. It was too late, he was in it. “He told me that he loved me, that he was proud of me.”

“NO!?” The man had the nerve to bark out a laugh.

Steve was around the front of the horse in a heartbeat, looming over the other man with all the menace he had in him. “Do not disrespect my father!”

“I was not disrespecting your father!” The man poked Steve in the chest. Poked him!

“Do not poke me.” He loomed a little closer.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” He poked Steve again.

“I said not to do that.”

“I’m doing it,” poke, “To make my point that I was not,” poke, “Disrespec-”

Steve grabbed the hand with the offending finger, twisted it around and behind the annoying little man who had to bend in half so his arm didn’t break. “Do not poke me, and do not disrespect the memory of my father. You don’t have to like me, I am only here to find out what happened to my father, not to take his job from you.” Steve pushed the man away from him in anger.

Williams caught his balance immediately with his first step, and turned getting right back into Steve’s face, unfazed by the fact that he had just been bested. “Get it through your thick skull, I was not disrespecting your father. My disrespect was aimed at you. And you’re right,” A fist was flying at Steve’s face, connecting with his jaw before he realized he should be defending himself. “I don’t like you.”

Picking up the reins he’d dropped when he’d been strong armed, the sheriff began walking again. “I hope you came back with plenty of gold, M’Garrett.” Humor, disrespectful humor, was back in the sheriff’s voice. “I understand rooms have gotten expensive in your absence.”

“I’ll stay at my father’s house.” 

“It’s my house now, and no you won’t.” To Steve it looked like the man was happy about the proclamation.

“My father wouldn’t have left the house to you!” Although he sounded certain, he hadn’t seen his father in years, it could be possible.

“Your father entailed the estate to the title of Sheriff of Oahu. I live there now.”

“He wouldn’t have left A’a to anyone but family.” Steve never expected to inherit his father’s position as sheriff, well he hadn’t expected it since his father sent him away. But the land, the house, were built with money from Steve’s mother. His father had always said that it was loaned to him by his children. Why would he have attached it to a title?

“A’a?” The man stopped and looked at Steve as he questioned the word.

“It means root. My mother loved things that were the same backwards and forwards, she could read and write and was taken with the idea of starting a family, our roots, with the word. My father named the house A’a for her.”

“That is the word that was carved into the stone threshold?” 

“Yes, that’s the name of my home.”

The sheriff turned and started walking again. “It’s my home!”


	3. Deprecate

“Steve M’Garrett?”

Both men turned to the voice that named the stranger on sight. Danny didn’t like it, didn’t like that people recognized the son of his predecessor. Very much didn’t like that it was a man who could only get work guarding Her Ladyship’s dungeon. 

He watched recognition hit the M’Garret’s face. _Damn_.

“Chin? Chin Ho Kelly? It is good to see you!” Steve put a hand out to shake in greeting. Kelly engulfed him in a hug.

“Howz’it Bruddah? I expected you before now. Where’ve you been?” Kelly was still smiling, possibly for Danny’s sake, but the questions were genuine.

“The Holy Land. I got here as quickly as I could.” M’Garrett seemed down about the length of time, Kelly simply nodded with understanding. “How’d you know I was here?”

“I didn’t. I heard that the h- That the sheriff was with a stranger, taking the long route around and I...” Chin trailed off.

Danny knew exactly what the man wanted to say, but he finished for him politely. “And he hoped it would be the prodigal son! Who knew?”

Steve’s eyes went wide and Danny caught him looking from Chin to him in some shock.

“Look,” Danny went on, deciding that beating around the bush was a waste of time. “I’m going to put my horse away, feed him and put him down for the night. You two get reacquainted.” And Danny walked away.

*~*~*

Steve watched the man walk his horse toward what was once his own father’s stables. He took in the differences. The place looked newly neglected. Not in ruin, just not as well taken care of as would befit the station of Sheriff of Oahu. And as he thought about it, Steve couldn’t remember a time when his father ever walked his own horse to the stable.

“He’s got no...” Steve looked around some more, and saw no one working about the yard, no one at all.

“No, he’s h’aole. He was put in place by Lady Jamison. They don’t really trust him.” Chin looked at the buildings, seeing what Steve had seen. “He does it himself. I don’t think your father would ever let this place look that bad, even if he’d been alone.”

“Why would she pick him? Why not you?” Steve felt anger rise at the state of things, both Chin’s employ and the estate.

“It’s okay, brah. A couple of years ago, I was accused of stealing from Her Ladyship’s stores. Silver, they said I took a lot of silver. You’re father, he stood by me. He was a good man. They couldn’t prove that I had taken the money, but he couldn’t prove that I hadn’t. As a favor to your father Lady Jamison let me come to work for her.” Chin shrugged, as if it weren’t the very big deal that Steve knew it was.

“Did you do it?” Steve was ever blunt.

“Did I... Are you-”

“Did you take the silver?”

“No. I didn’t take it.”

“Then tell me what happened to my father.” And as far as Steve was concerned, Chin had been wrongfully accused. He was back to the reason he’d come home.

*~*~*

Danny was sitting in the main hall, when Steve came in. He hadn’t been sure that the man would come in after talking with Chin. Part of him hoped that Steve would continue on to the town, perhaps be welcomed by more people who remembered him. Part of him knew that being seen with Chin Ho Kelly would do Steve no better than to be seen with the Norman Sheriff.

“The stone,” Steve’s loud voice echoed through the hall as he pointed to the front of the building. “The threshold is gone!” It both was and wasn’t a question.

“It is in the courtyard,” Danny admitted. He’d finally recognized what it should have been when Steve had told him the name of the building. “It is in pieces. I will see about having it put back together, or remade if I can’t.”

“My father carved that for my mother!” It was all Danny could do not to wince at the bellowing.

“It was like that when I arrived. Maybe you’d like to refit the stone yourself?” 

Danny watched Steve deflate when it occurred to him that the damage wasn’t Danny’s doing. He watched the man look around at the hall he grew up in, the empty hall, devoid of all but a table with three chairs and a trestle bench near the fire. 

Steve walked to the table, the round table that Danny had been told the older M’Garrett had insisted upon. There were a few new planks in it, and the older boards looked damaged as he watched Steve run an affectionate hand over one. “Where is everything?” This time the question was softer.

“Some things that were clearly family pieces, I have stored, for when you came home, or if your sister called for them at the convent.” Danny looked directly into his stew.

“And the rest?” Steve braced both his hands on the table.

“Things that were clearly property for the sheriff, I have assumed.” Danny didn’t want to discuss the volume of items that were damaged beyond repair. The tapestries that had been generations of work, furniture that had been painstakingly carved, personal family mementos that had been destroyed beyond reason. “There is stew, and a bowl.” Danny pointed to the fire where a pot hung on a hook.

Steve filled the bowl, and bringing it back to the table he moved a chair to be a few feet from Danny rather than across, and reached for a chunk of bread. “You have a child?” He’d clearly seen the doll on the bench.

“A daughter, Grace.”

“And you let her live here?” 

“She lives with Lord Edwards.”

“You’ve fostered her? How old is she?”

“She is eight, and no, her mother, my wife, is married to him!” Danny slammed his spoon onto the table.

“Your wife, is Lord Edwards’ wife?”

“It’s a long story.” Danny tried to be curt.

“I’ve got nowhere to be.”

“What did Kelly tell you about your father?”

Steve seemed to think on that for a moment. “You first.”

Danny pushed his bowl away and sat back in his chair. “Rachel’s father died when she was an infant, she and her mother came to live with a relative in Newark, where my father was sheriff. We fell in love, were married, Grace was born, and the life of a sheriff’s son was not everything she had imagined. Lord Edwards arrived with proof that Rachel’s father had married her to Lord Edwards, that he was her lawful husband. He did give her the choice of staying married to me if I held her heart.” Danny arched a brow at Steve letting Rachel’s choice be evident without voicing it. “He adores Grace, treats her well, and found me the first position he could that was no more than a half a day’s ride away. Lady Jamison owes her fealty to him, and she gave me the position when he requested it.”

“That is...” Steve turned away, wouldn’t meet Danny’s eyes.

“It’s shit. Some other man has my wife, my daughter. _Allows_ me to see her once a week, and gave me work so that I am in _his_ debt. Shit is what it is!”

Steve nodded solemnly. “Is there something stronger to drink than watered wine?”

Danny smiled derisively.


	4. Objurate

Danny woke up slowly. The bed was moving, he was moving. There was a heavy thigh thrown over his hip, and an erection thrusting against his back. Danny froze, and then tried to move away.

“No. Please?” 

Danny felt his upper arm gripped tightly, that alone should have instilled more panic in him. But the need, the desperation in the voice… Danny found himself relaxing slightly, leaning back. He nodded, not sure if Steve would even be able to tell.

*~*~*

They had sat at the table after the M’Garrett finished eating. Danny waited to hear what the man had to say about his father’s death, about what had driven him to come home from the glory of the crusades.

Eventually, when he finished eating, Danny watched the man pick up the bottle he’d found and drag his chair over to the fire. He nodded his head, indicating that Danny should join him, and he moved the trestle out of the way. Danny smiled at the care the man showed for Grace’s doll.

When they were both sitting, Choi’s brew in their cups, Danny looked to his guest expectantly. 

“Chin said they were not allowed entrance to the home once they were told about my father’s death. That as a sign of respect Lady Jamison’s personal guard dressed his body and brought him shrouded to the church. No one except her personal guards were allowed into the home. Not even the servants.”

“I gathered as much.” Danny interjected when the man stopped speaking. “What else did he say?”

“He said that you do a good job,” M’Garrett smiled. “For a h’a-“ He cleared his throat. “For a Norman.”

Danny chuckled. “I know what they call me. I’m surprised they don’t call you one too.”

“They do, I see it as an endearment. But the people seem to like you, those that have had reason to meet you.”

“But they still don’t trust me.” Danny sighed. Drank some more.

“You were the first person they allowed into the house after my father’s death. Chin tells me that quite a few people were upset to know so little about his death. Then you showed up and…”

“I wasn’t _allowed_. I just didn’t let them stop me. I had a letter with Lady Jamison’s mark. The house was mine to occupy. I didn’t let them keep me out.” M’Garrett opened his mouth to speak and Danny silenced him with a held up hand. “Do not tell me it was disrespectful of your father again. It was their _respect_ that kept Chin and the others out of the house, and perhaps they should have come in.”

Steve perked up. Looked to Danny intently to expand upon what he was saying.

“The … most everything was destroyed when I arrived.” He wasn’t sure why he was telling this man the things he was about to. Danny had suspicions about what had happened to the previous sheriff, taking the post was not simple. Distrust came off the people like waves trying to crush him. It came from Her Ladyship too, and her men. Nobody seemed to want Danny Williams where he was, not even Danny. “I hadn’t seen Grace in over three months. I was given a date that I was to be taking over the post, but Edwards had mentioned that your father had died. I didn’t see a reason to delay leaving Newark, delay seeing my daughter.”

Steve nodded where Danny felt he should, and Danny felt himself relaxing slightly, confessing some more. “When I came in … I’ve seen storms level homes and do less damage. They were looking for something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But that was the sort of destruction. Nothing was left on the walls, some stones were pulled up. Furniture was overturned, and I presume that some of it was destroyed in a rage when whatever they were looking for could not be found. Some things were probably destroyed because no one was here to care about the destruction.”

“How do you know they didn’t find what they were looking for?” The man leaned forward intently, eyes boring into Danny.

“They continue to search.” Danny smiled wryly. “When I travel to pick up Grace, when I bring her back to her mother, there is evidence that the house has been gone through, if you know where to look for it.”

“Or if you set something up to be tampered with?” Danny’s guest smiled widely, and Danny felt an appreciation for his intelligence that he hadn’t found since he’d left Newark.

“They go through the stables and outbuildings every now and then. Whatever it is they want, they don’t have it yet.”

“You’re sure they aren’t just stealing?”

“In the rubble, when I first arrived, there was jewelry that I presumed was your mother’s. A ring, with an Oahu crest. Your father’s?” Steve just seemed to nod. “There were items destroyed that would have been worth something and not traceable if they had been left whole. I’m sure it was Lady Jamison’s men, and while they may have taken some things, that wasn’t their purpose.” 

He watched Steve look around the room with new eyes. Danny hoped he wasn’t thinking again about the disgrace Danny brought to the place, but maybe what he was trying to bring back with what he was given. And he couldn’t put a name to why he wanted this man to think good things about him rather than bad.

*~*~*

Hot breath rushed across Danny’s shoulder as Steve kept thrusting against his spine. It was… so good to have someone want him this much again, even if what Steve was picturing in his mind wasn’t Danny, it was Danny that was there, it was Danny that was letting him rub off on his back.

There were farmers, in the west valley. At first Danny had thought that they might be brothers, possibly one of them given to the farm to foster as a child, but he’d found out otherwise. He’d gone to speak to them about chickens of theirs that had gone missing. He’d seen the men in the field, been about to call out to them when he realized that they weren’t plowing the field. 

He was embarrassed to think that he’d stayed there for too long, watching them. Watching the men fuck. Watching them make love. He’d quietly made his way back to the tree line, eaten his lunch, and let his own body calm before he went back to speak to them. Danny gave all three of them time to recover.

He thought of them again, as Steve pushed against him. He felt himself begin to sweat, felt his own need take over as the man behind him made amazing noises. Danny felt teeth sink into his shoulder, muffling the sound made as Steve exploded against his back.

Danny was hot and bothered himself, wanted, desperately wanted to feel what it was like to do some of what he’d seen in that field but with Steve. Was about to roll over when he was suddenly let go. No hand on his arm, no leg over his hip, no hot cock leaking onto his back.

“Oh God.” Danny heard the whisper, he heard Steve’s body hit the wall behind him. “Oh no. Nonononoooooo.” Danny had never heard a whispered wail before. 

He rolled onto his back just in time to grab Steve’s arm as the man tried to escape the bed. “Wait, just…” And Danny may have used a bit too much force to keep Steve on the side of the bed that he’d slept on.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry Daniel. I shouldn’t have… I’ve never… Oh God!”

Danny pulled back slightly, blinking in confusion. “What the hell? Are you…” He bellowed in frustration, but held the other man in place. “Are you out of your mind?” He tried again. “You don’t wake a guy up like that, say _Oh God, I’m sorry_ and then scramble away. Were you raised by wolves?” Danny pushed forward, kissing Steve hard.

*~*~*

“If you are heading into town, you should go before it gets too cold.” Danny pulled his gaze from the dwindling fire. “You’re welcome to take a horse.”

The man blushed a bit, looked sideways under his lashes at Danny. “I was hoping I could sleep here for the night.”

Danny sighed deeply. It had been a long day; he’d been looking forward to sleeping in his own bed. But the M’Garrett probably hadn’t slept in a real bed since he’d left England. He found couldn’t deny the man, and it wasn’t his fault that there was only the one bed in the building. “It’s the first room at the top of the stairs. Gabby will have lit the fire before she left.”

“Were you planning on letting me stay, or am I taking your bed?”

“Furniture is at a minimum here. You take the bed, I’ll sleep here. “ Danny raised a hand again when Steve started to object. “I sleep here when Grace stays with me. It’s fine.”

“Thank you.” M’Garrett said with a bit of resignation, and Danny watched him climb the stairs. 

He stayed seated in his chair, looking at the bench with not a little distaste, and thinking on the large changes that the day had brought to him, just with the addition of one man to Oahu.

M’Garrett appeared at the top of the stairs, just as Danny was standing to move to the bench. “It’s a very large bed...” He paused, gesturing toward the room behind him. “What is the worst that would happen if we shared?”


	5. Effulgent

The next time Danny woke he was alone. He quickly turned toward the chest across the room and let out a relieved breath. M’Garrett’s clothes were gone, but his sword, knives and sundry armaments were still there.

Danny got out of bed, washed his face (and back), then dressed for the day. When he left his room he noted how bright the hall was. The door to the east room was open nearly blinding Danny with the effulgent light. He walked toward it. 

Stopping at the doorway Danny took note of how the sunlight made M’Garrett’s skin glow. The man leaned against the frame of the glass window. When Danny had first seen the window, and been very grateful that they had not been broken in the ransacking, he’d thought of the previous sheriff, and how he must have dearly loved his wife to give her such a treasure in a private sitting room. It was a luxury Danny never expected to have in a home.

“My mother loved this room. Even on a dull day, this was her favorite indoor place to be.” 

Danny walked closer into the room. “I like to look out, it helps me to sort things out. I’ve commissioned the carver to make some chairs for the room. Grace likes it in here as well.” 

The man never turned as Danny spoke, it left him feeling almost as frustrated as he’d felt a few hours earlier. “M’Garrett-”

“Steve.” the man interrupted. 

“Danny.” _Steve_ finally looked at him, he had a bit of a blush on his face, and Danny recognized the slight panic in the man’s eyes. “If you apologize again, I will punch you.” Steve smiled and nodded. “How are you feeling?”

“I... uh...” 

Danny laughed when Steve blushed even further. “Your back is scratched, from the stone.” While Steve had grabbed his clothes before he left the room, he hadn’t put his shirt on before being drawn to the lure of the glassed opening. With his body turned, Danny could clearly see the damage he’d done when he’d manhandled the Steve in the middle of the night. “I-”

He was interrupted by a pounding noise that echoed through the building. It was followed quickly by the creak of the heavy oak door that stood as main entry of the home and someone bellowing for the sheriff.

Danny smiled at Steve. “They won’t come up the stairs, just keep yelling until I come down. Take your time. Gabby will be here within the hour. She will find you something to eat.” There was noise coming from the hall, a woman’s voice, scolding. “Or she is already here.” Danny moved toward the door.

“Gabby?” Steve’s tone stopped him, there was suspicion and a bit of guilt.

“She is my housekeeper, she worked for your father before me. You know her husband, Fong, I have heard long stories of how he grew up in your stable.” Steve smiled, opened his mouth to comment but Danny shook his head. “I have to get down there before I’m required to arrest her for murder.”

*~*~*

Steve finished dressing and slowly walked closer to the stairs trying to overhear what was being said between Danny and whoever his visitor was. He was so intent on the conversation that he wasn’t listening to the footsteps coming up the stairs, didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until there was a woman standing in front of him.

He stepped back quickly. She nodded and smiled politely and went into the bedroom with an arm full of linens. Steve followed and found himself a bit horrified that she was changing the bedding, that she knew it needed to be changed when he was certain the previous night that it had been fresh when he climbed in.

“What will you say?”

“What will I say to who?” She never looked up from her work. “Anyone who matters would not care. Anyone who cares doesn’t matter. But if they did,” she finally looked at Steve, then gestured for him to pull the bed away from the wall and help her. “I would tell them how loud the sheriff snores whenever I come in and find him on that bench. And that, perhaps, now that the M’Garrett is staying at A’a, that lazy carver should get to work on all the pieces the sheriff has paid him to make.”

“Why doesn’t Charlie work for him in the stables?” Steve asked, as politely as he could, wanting to convey that he didn’t think that it was fair the way the people of Oahu treated their sheriff either.

“Your father had a school built.” Gabby smiled, it lit up her face. “He taught my husband to read, to write, taught him history. Charlie teaches the children, any child that can make it to the lesson. Your father set aside a portion of his own wages for us. This sheriff chose to do the same.”

Steve smiled back at her. He remembered his mother saying that something like that should exist, he was proud that his father did it finally. And from what he knew of Danny in less than a full day, it was something the man would not let falter.

*~*~*

Danny watched Steve come down the stairs from the corner of his eye as he was dealing with the toad that Lady Jamison had sent. He had hoped Steve would stay away, at least until the man was gone. The longer he had until Her Ladyship found out that Steve was back the better.

“What happened?” Danny liked that Steve asked him rather than the minion.

“One of Wo Fat’s men spotted the Hesse brothers to the north. He is afraid that they will make an attempt to steal his livestock, and has asked for my support.” Danny explained, smiling at the other man who had taken so long to get to a point that Danny summed up in two sentences.

“So we’re going?”

“Yes- um... _We_?” Danny was shocked.

“I’d like to visit the churchyard, where my parents are, but other than that, I’ve got nothing planned. And I would think they will still be there if I don’t make it today.”

Danny shrugged, and turned to the third man. “Please tell Lady Jamison that we will be out to speak to Wo Fat with all due haste.”

The man walked away, once the door was closed behind him Steve asked, “You don’t believe him?”

“Oh, I believe the Hesses are in the area, but Wo Fat buys most of what they steal. And they are smart enough to not steal from him. The dumbest man in the village is smart enough not to steal from Wo Fat.”

“So it’s a trap then? Great.”


	6. Nescience

They were saddling horses when Danny decided to tell Steve his theory. “I don’t think it’s a trap as much as I think it’s a way to get me off the property. They don’t have a reason to kill me yet.”

“Should I stay behind then?” Steve stopped what he was doing mid motion to question Danny.

“I don’t know, not for certain, but it would be better to have you with me. Probably.”

Steve went back to fitting the saddle to the animal. “Another sword arm in case it is an ambush.”

“Hello! Sheriff!” Danny pointed to his chest and then off into … wherever. “Not some quaking maiden in a tower! I can...” He grunted and then finished with his own mount.

“Then what is it you’d rather have me with you for?” 

The suggestiveness in the words hit Danny like a heatwave. He let it wash over him for a minute, the feeling and the memories from the night, then he got his head back in the business at hand. “Look, M’Garrett. They either know you are here and it has made them desperate. Or they don’t know you’re here, and something else has made them desperate. Either way, it’s probably best if you’re not lounging around here when they arrive.”

Gabby cleared her throat, when they looked toward her she was holding a cloth wrapped package. 

Danny smiled and took the food from her. “Wait until-”

“You are over the north rise. I will. I’ve set the bucket. And I will leave some bedding in the east room.” She interrupted him, and Danny smiled that they were both practiced enough in the searches that Gabby would be safe.

“We’ll stop in the village on the way back.” Gabby just smiled and went back to the house. Danny explained to Steve, “The first time I went to get Grace, Gabby asked if she could spend the day in town with Charlie, it was a market day. It was obvious that the house had been gone through again in our absence. Since then, she stays out of the house when it’s know that I won’t be here.”

Steve nodded and climbed upon his horse. And again Danny felt a little bit appreciated.

“Now,” Danny asked pulling himself into the saddle, “Why would she tell me about the bedding?”

*~*~*

Danny wasn’t sure where he stood with Steve. On any front. There were questions he wanted to ask about multiple topics, he didn’t know where to start. Halfway through the trip to Wo Fat’s property the nescience feel of the last day was bothering him too much to keep quiet.

He signaled for Steve to slow his horse. “They have told me very little.”

“They?”

“Yes! They! Anyone, everyone. They!” Danny sighed as he watched Steve shake with silent laughter. He felt he’d disclosed some very personal information the night before. Telling, in a very abrupt manner, about the demise of his marriage. Most of the people within his jurisdiction knew that the woman he’d called wife was not married to Edwards, and they seemed to know that her father had married her off in infancy. Rachel having a choice, having chosen to leave Danny, that was something Danny had only told Steve. He didn’t think even Lady Jamison knew. It would be fair for Steve to give something of himself. “Her Ladyship called me rude when I asked about your father. About your family.”

“I can’t imagine why she’d think you rude.”

“I do know how to question people when I want information from them.”

“Really? And what have you gotten from me?”

Danny smiled at Steve’s over confident laugh. “I’m getting there.”

“I’m more difficult to crack?”

“No. I just need to get you to a place where you can see that I can be trusted. That I can be more help than hindrance.” Danny watched Steve’s face for when the truth of the words sank in. He waited a few heart beats and then, “What happened that your father sent you away?”

It was a common enough practice, among the Normans at least, to send their sons off to be fostered. To have them raised by people without the emotional attachment that would often get in the way of a family member teaching a boy to fight. _That_ was not the way of the people in Oahu. They were all family, in mind if not in blood. The _ohana_ would help the child, teach him to fight to defend them all. All fighting side by side. Danny was under the belief that although John M’Garrett was Norman by blood, he had adopted the way of the people of Oahu, they had clearly loved the man. Sending his son off to be fostered in a Norman keep went against that. Drastically against that.

“My mother was killed.”

Danny watched the man stare off over the horse’s head. Waited for him to speak again.

“She was out riding. She did every day. Rode to a different part of the county each day. Bringing food and cloth where they were needed for the cold or hungry. Helping new mothers, new wives, sitting with the elders.” Steve stopped talking.

Danny felt there was more. “She sounds like the best of women.”

Steve barked a laugh. “She could be, but if you crossed her, or threatened one of the people she held dear... Sometimes she was scarier than my father.”

Danny smiled at the picture.

“She was thrown. The priests took her body for shrouding. Mary and I never saw her again after she rode out that morning.” Steve paused for a while and Danny let him. “My father was.. a mess. He couldn’t sleep. He was constantly short tempered. But I remember him in the east room, staring out the window, crying, every day. We were not allowed to leave the grounds. Not allowed near the horses. A little more than a fortnight later, Mary and I were packed off. Chin and some of my father’s men took us away. We left Mary at the Convent of the Lost Angels, then continued on to Annapolis where I was trained.”

“That’s less than two days from Newark.” It was only a point of reference, something Danny said to try and pull his companion from within his own mind.

“Not too far, no. I’ve heard of it, but have never traveled there.”

“Your loss.” Danny quipped smugly.

“Apparently.” It sounded as though there was something suggestive in the word, but Danny wasn’t certain that it wasn’t strictly wishful thinking on his part. “I left there for the Holy Land. Mary and I exchanged letters. I... We both wrote to my father after we left. Neither of us received letters in return. I eventually stopped writing to him, and didn’t send anything for years until I was leaving. He finally answered with only, _Stay safe._


	7. Emolument

Danny stopped their progress at the bottom of a rise. “When we reach the top we will be visible to his sentries. We will need to look as though we were moving quickly.”

“I thought this was Lady Jamison’s land for another few leagues?”

“It is.” Danny spurred his horse on, hoping that his house guest understood.

As Danny reached the hilltop M’Garrett raced by him. The animal was urged to move at a breakneck pace that a man unfamiliar with the land or the horse should not use.

“That is my horse, M’Garrett! Slow down!” The sheriff yelled as loud as he could while he tried to keep up as safely as possible.

Steve turned and smiled like a lunatic.

*~*~*

They slowed as they rode into Wo Fat’s keep. While they dismounted a rider entered the courtyard behind them. Danny turned toward the stairs that lead to the great hall and watched as the landowner scowled at the sentry. He would not want to be in the man’s boots for not being able to get here before them. Danny found himself a little less winded at Steve’s insane push to cover ground quickly.

“Sheriff, it is good to see that the emolument you receive from the taxes I pay is incentive enough to arrive this quickly when I have need of you.” The man looked gracious as he spoke. He sounded pleased and polite. Danny didn’t trust him at all, but he clasped his arm all the same when Wo Fat reached the bottom of the stairs.

Danny noted Steve mentally counting and placing all of the guards. He liked that he shared in his distrust, and then introduced M’Garrett to the man who had most likely ordered his father killed. “I don’t know that you’ve met. This is Steven M’Garrett, he is the son of the old sheriff. And this is Wo Fat, her Ladyship’s _gamekeeper_.


	8. Lissom

They were headed back to the village before Steve spoke to Danny again. Well off Lady Jamison’s land.

“I hadn’t expected you to be so lissom.”

Steve’s words made Danny think of the night before. Of the things they’d done in Danny’s bed. He felt himself blush.

The next words felt heavier, and put a different context to the lissom comment.

“The extent to which you were able to bend over for that man was impressive. I can see why the Lady named you sheriff.” Steve stared off into the horizon.

Danny stopped his horse. He was angry. Angrier than he recalled being for quite some time. Words started forming in his mind. Scathing rebuttals, words that would defame the M’Garrett sheriff, phrases that would get him nowhere.

When Steve’s horse finally turned back and stopped, their eyes meeting, Danny spoke clearly, voice tainted with rage. “What would you have me do?”

“What would I…” Steve vehemence exploded as well. “I would have you question why a gamekeeper has been granted land. Given a keep. Has more men than the sheriff!” Steve bellowed the last and edged his horse closer. “Why does the gamekeeper need your assistance with poachers when he has a full score of men?”

“He has two score men.” Danny corrected and looked away. “I believe she meant to name him sheriff. I am told that he was granted land by her for saving her life, although I can find no one who knows the details of it. I know that the transfer of men and duties began under the old sheriff.” He went on before Steve could protest. “The title of gamekeeper was given after it was demanded by my wife’s husband that I be given employ. I am _lissom_ so that I can be near my daughter and stay alive to watch her grow!” Danny had moved closer as well. When he looked at M’Garrett again they were close enough to touch.

“You believe he is behind my father’s death?” The question was void of anger.

“I have no proof.”

“But you believe?” Steve’s hand reached out, fingertips grazing Danny’s cheek.

“I do.”


	9. Exiguous

They lunched in the village, bread, cheese, and some heavily salted boar. They didn’t speak of Wo Fat again. At least not directly. Steve asked some reasonably veiled questions.

“She is aware?”

Danny nodded. Lady Jamison was a puppet, in his eyes. It was possible that she didn’t feel that the strings controlled her as well as they did, but she knew who held them.

“So, she sanctioned… it?”

The sheriff smiled and shook his head as more drink was brought to them. “M’Garrett, do you remember Malia?”

Steve stood from his bench and smiled at the woman. “Of course.” He held out a hand waiting for Malia to take it. He kissed the back of her knuckles. “You have only grown more lovely.”

“If only Chin thought that.” She answered blushing.

“He does.” Danny interjected. “He probably doesn’t think he’s worthy.”

Her eyes flared with indignation. “He didn’t-”

Danny interrupted again. “I meant only that you are as intelligent as you are beautiful and you are the most skilled healer I have ever seen. Those are intimidating qualities each alone. Together, I can sympathize with his awe and trepidation.”

She eyed him for a minute then smiled once more. “You can be a charmer, Sheriff.”

Danny shrugged. “It comes and it goes.”

Malia answered Steve’s polite questions about the well being of a few people. Danny recognized most of the names they talked about. As she was taking her leave of them, movement beyond the open double doors caught Danny’s eye.

A single rider in Jamison livery looked over his horse. When he seemed satisfied that it was Danny’s horse he began to dismount. “He’s here for you.” Danny nudged Steve with his foot. If he’d been looking for the Sheriff, the man would have been moving faster and shouting for him.

“I’m being summoned?”

“Be smart about it, Steven. You cannot accuse her, or Wo Fat. What we have is exiguous at best, and we would have to go to Edwards with it.”

Steve stood and leveled an angry look at Danny. “I’m not as inept as you may think.”

Danny raised his hands in surrender as Her Ladyship’s man approached. When Steve nodded and gestured for the man to lead the way, Danny called out once more. “Take what she offers you M’Garrett.”


	10. Incipient

Danny sat in front of the a small fire in his great hall. _His._ He smiled sadly at the thought. A’a would not be his for long. Probably the length of time that it took for the M’Garrett to ride back from his audience with Lady Jamison.

The night was pleasant, neither cool nor hot; and Danny had opened the doors wide. Not the best concept for his safety, but he was one man alone with only horses. If Wo Fat wanted him dead, a barred door would do very little good. The open doors did let him hear better in the quiet night. He would know as soon as a horse set foot on the cobbled courtyard.

Danny tried to tell himself that he wasn’t waiting for the M’Garrett, for Steve. Tried to convince himself that his incipient feelings were not romantic in nature, were simply those of friendship. He smiled sadly at that self-deception as well.

Eventually he heard a horse head in. Danny didn’t move, just waited. He heard the animal slow down, head off to the stables. It was some time later that he heard human footsteps. When they paused, Danny turned. “You’ve eaten?” Steve nodded, stayed where he was. “She made you sheriff.” Danny looked back at the fire, his words having been more of a statement than a question.

M’Garrett sank down onto the bench a few feet from Danny. “She offered. I explained that she had an exceptional sheriff already.”

Danny chuckled. “Thank you.”

“It was explained to me that she didn’t understand why my father had entailed the land, but that if I took the job it was a way to keep the place.”

“It never made sense to me either. I’ve seen homes that were property of the sheriff, but not something like this, with the land.” Danny still didn’t meet Steve’s eyes. He wanted to see neither guilt, nor a lack of it, when it came to the M’Garrett taking his job.

“She would have gifted it to Wo Fat when she made him sheriff, as you suggested.” Danny merely nodded.

They were both silent for a time. Memories of the previous night, the day’s events, and looming possibilities weighing on both of them.

“A’a is mine, Danny. We both know that, don’t we? But the title of Sheriff, that is your’s to keep. I couldn’t take that from you.” Steve reached a hand out to Danny’s knee. “I wouldn’t take you away from your daughter.”


	11. Glower

Steve stood, took a step back without turning from Danny. 

Danny didn’t move, kept staring at the fire, avoided the conversation he desperately didn’t want to have.

M’Garrett was having none of it. He boldly asked, “Are you coming to bed?”

“No.” 

“No?” Steve dropped back down to the bench. “Why? Look at me and tell me why. I thought…”

Danny turned sharply, met Steve’s glower. He didn’t want to merely be convenient for the man. He knew his heart would shortly be as involved as his body, and he wanted to know that he would mean more to Steve than warm skin he could rub off against in the middle of the night, when his needs overpowered him.

And more than that, Danny didn’t want to be left behind again. Left alone when Steve moved on, back to the crusades or took a wife. Or even when he took the job of sheriff and Danny went back to his father’s house where he’d have neither Grace nor Steve.

He hadn’t known the man for two full days, and already feared losing him. 

“It would be better for you,” Danny finally spoke, voice small in the large room. “better for both of us if last night’s … miscalculation was not repeated.”

“Miscalculation?”

Danny’s eyes bored into Steve’s face. “Are you telling me that it was me you were thinking of when you woke in that state? Me that you wanted when you were humping my back?” There was something in Steve’s eyes, too quickly gone for Danny to determine what it was, but Steve looked down at the bench and didn’t say anything. “I think it’s best that we don’t repeat … that.”

They both sat silently for several minutes, uncomfortable, and yet somehow comfortable as well. Danny’s own mind was reeling at the need he felt for Steve to declare himself for Danny. It left him feeling silly and lovesick.

Finally he had to speak, had to send Steve upstairs if he hoped for any sleep at all. “I should be leaving at first light to see Grace. Will it be alright with you if I bring her back here for two nights?”

Steve looked up and his face held a slight smile. “I should like to meet her. Please, bring her back to your home.” Steve stood and moved toward the stairs. “I’ll sleep in the East room. Good night to you, Danny.”


	12. Slugabed

Light was streaming in through the windows, when Steve woke. Or rather, when he was awakened by a delicate foot kicking at his own. He opened his eyes to a backlit woman looming over him.

“I didn’t expect you to be such a slugabed.” 

_Gabby._ Steve’s addled brain filled in the name while his eyes tried to focus. “I didn’t sleep well.” It had actually taken him quite a while to fall asleep. He’d tossed and turned, trying to work out Danny’s behavior which was so opposed to the words he had said before sending Steve away.

“I am also surprised to find you sleeping in here.” For a housekeeper, Steve found she had quite a bit of accusation in her tone.

He debated simply giving her a haughty look, or telling her that her supposition and her tone were out of line for her position. But he liked her, and he liked that she seemed to be looking after and out for Danny. And he really didn’t understand why Danny had made the decision he had. “It wasn’t my first choice.” He said it simply, pushed the hair out of his eyes and sat up.

He could see her better now, and her eyes narrowed as her hands went to her hips. “He is a good catch.”

“I’ve known him for two days, I don’t know him well enough to know that.”

She huffed. “I knew it within moments. If not for Charlie, I might have pursued him.” Gabby tilted her head. “Perhaps you not noticing means you’re not a good catch.”

Steve thought about that. Rummaged through his mind that he’d never found a woman worth pursuing, or a man either. Maybe he wasn’t a what someone else would be looking for in a spouse and helpmate. 

It went through his mind that he wanted to be what Danny was looking for in those things.

“Has he already left?”

“At least three hours ago.” Gabby paused for a moment, clearly wanting to go on yet hesitating. Steve found it odd.

“Ask it. Whatever it is.”

“Are you to be the new sheriff?” 

“No.” His answer was clear and quick. “It was offered, but the sheriff we have is much better suited. I do want to stay on, but I …” Steve let the sentence fall.

Gabby smiled at him for the first time since he’d woken in the straw on the floor. “There is fresh water for washing in his room. When you’re dressed, there will be food for you downstairs, and… And it would be helpful if you went to the carpenter in town, Kaleo, and told him to get to work on the furniture he’s already been paid to make.” Gabby headed for the door. “If we are to have you and the sheriff and his daughter, this should be more of a home, and less a set of walls.”

Steve smiled as she left. New plans for the day made him feel lighter than he had since he’d met with Lady Jamison the day before.


	13. Desultory

Danny had made it to Lord Edwards’ land in very good time. The weather was good, and had been so for a week leaving the roads dry and passable. 

It was the first time since he’d been named Sheriff of Oahu that he’d felt he could leave and not worry that his duties were not being seen to. He was certain that Steve would see to anything that arose in his absence. 

However, there was nothing else about Steve in which Danny could feel certain.

He’d not been certain of his future since Rachel had denounced their marriage. Even the appointment as sheriff hadn’t seemed like it would be overly long. But now, with Steve’s arrival, his entire life felt desultory at best. Danny didn’t even know if bringing Grace to A’a would be a good idea.

It was a pretty picture in his head, the idea of a future with the M’Garrett. If Danny could remain as sheriff, still have responsibility and income, while Steve owned and managed the land, it would be a beautiful thing. Someone to wake up with again. Someone to respect and be respected by. Help and be helped. Someone to climb into bed with for long intentionally sleepless nights. Maybe he could even convince Rachel and her husband to let Grace stay with him for a few days at a time.

But that was fantasy. He didn’t feel his home was safe enough for Grace for more than a day at a time. And now he felt even more temporary in that unsafe home.

At the crest of the rise he could see his destination. Within minutes he could make out his small daughter on the parapet waving wildly. He smiled, waved, and spurred on his horse. 

He dismounted to the sound of his former wife telling their daughter to slow down, and then the most beautiful sight and sound in the world. Grace ran for his arms calling out “Danno! Danno!”


	14. Birthday

Danny approached A’a and slowed the horse down. Grace was asleep in his arms. There were times that they borrowed a small cart from Lord Edwards, but the days that he was able to ride with his baby in his arms were the best trips back from the ostentatious keep.

There were lights lit all over the property. At least a score of lamps. Danny couldn’t recall there being that many lamps at the home.

He was late coming in, he’d stopped with Grace for lunch in a flowering fallow field. They’d stuck their feet in a cool stream and he’d let her take the time to weave flowers into a crown. Her hair still smelled of them. Danny hadn’t really wanted to hurry his precious daughter back. Back to a place that was no longer his when he doubted he’d still be there for his next visit with her.

He watched and slowed his pace. It wasn’t on fire, which had been his initial fear, it was simply very well lit. He had a moment of fear that perhaps someone had come for the M’Garrett in the same manner that they’d come for his father, and while he wanted to help, he’d need to get Grace safe first. 

Danny was about to turn toward the tree line when three riders passed under the portcullis and headed straight for him. There was no way to turn and move fast enough with a tired horse and a sleeping daughter. Panic gripped him until they all stopped at once upon seeing him. Only one moved forward.

 _Steve._ Danny felt relief, felt the name go all the way through him. Danny urged his horse toward A’a again.

M’Garrett smiled at him when he saw Grace. “We worried. Gabby said you were always back before sunset. We were coming to look for you.”

The words warmed Danny in a way he had never felt before. _”We?_ ”

“Chin, Kono, and I.” Steve answered frankly. He turned his horse and they both headed up the hill. “It didn’t make sense to me either that you’d endanger your daughter.”

“I had meant to be back before now.” Danny shrugged. “Time got away.” He watched Steve look at Grace and smiled with what Danny took to be understanding. “Kono Kalakaua?” Danny knew her to be Chin’s cousin, knew she had been training to join Lady Jamison’s guard, but he’d never met her, and the idea of a woman wanting to be a guard certainly had intrigued Danny. “And why is your home lit up as though it’s a birthday cake?”

Steve looked at him oddly as they entered under the portcullis. “It’s your home. It belongs to the Sheriff of Oahu, and that is you. But it is lit because we have been busy all day, and there is more to do.” Steve leaned in a little closer and quieted his tone. “Your housekeeper can be a scary woman.”

Danny laughed, and began to jostle his daughter awake. “Monkey, we’re ho- We’re here. Wake up. I’m sure Gabby has made something delicious for you.” At that moment the woman in question came rushing from the kitchens and held her arms high to take Grace from Danny.

When they dismounted, Danny noticed a boy standing near them, clearly waiting to take the horses; Danny let him with only a questioning brow in Steve’s direction. Steve handed his reins off as well then rested his forearm on Danny’s shoulder, as if leaning on him. “Our home.” he said simply then followed Gabby into the kitchens.


	15. Irascible

The visit with Grace was a whirlwind.

Danny didn’t know if it was the plethora of lighting or the influx of furniture, but A’a felt more like a home. A small keep, but a home. There were rushes on the floor, not woven but certainly herbed. And while some of the furniture was borrowed, there were some pieces that were now _his_. 

Gabby had lit a fire under Steve, Steve had frightened Kaleo in a way that Danny hadn’t been able. There was a bed for Grace. Grace was over the moon. She helped Gabby put linens over the temporary straw after directing M’Garrett where to put the piece in what had once been Steve’s sister’s bedroom. 

For a day and a half Danny had watched his small daughter charm the seemingly unending parade of people who had been coming through to help. He’d watched her enchant M’Garrett. She’d made plans. With Gabby to make bed linens and tapestries. With Steve to learn to fish and to fight. With Charlie to further her education. Even with her new best friend Kono, although he wasn’t allowed to know what they were planning.

Danny loved and hated it. Each smile of hers warmed his heart and made it ache as well that the plans would not see fruition. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop her, stop them. He recognized that he was hopeful for all those things as well.

They left after lunch on Grace’s second day. Steve traveled most of the way with them, wanting to visit his sister in the convent not far from Lord Edwards’ property. They arranged to meet at the same fork on their return in a few hours.

Danny was irascible as ever when he dropped off Grace. He was polite, and did everything to keep his temper at bay while he hugged his daughter good bye, nodded his addresses to his once wife and her new husband.

Plodding slowly, he made his way back to where Steve was waiting for him. The entire brisk ride back to A’a was filled with Steven chirping Mary this and Mary that. Danny was only half listening at best.

Half listening until – “I’d like her to come stay with us for a while.”

Danny could just see the smoke from the fireplace of A’a before the chimney and roofline came into view. He turned, a little shocked. “Us? It’s your home, Steve. There is no _us_.”

Steve stared ahead. “You’ve been very quiet, I was afraid that was what you were thinking.” He sighed, so heavily that Danny could almost feel it in his own shoulders. “It is your home. You are the sheriff, it is where your daughter should be raised. It is also my home.” Steve finally turned to meet Danny’s eyes. “What will it take to make you see that it’s our home?”


	16. Acumen

Danny didn’t say anything until they arrived at the stables. The boy roused and took their horses, he was directed to head home as soon as the animals were seen to. “Let’s talk inside.” Danny’s voice was quiet and Steve just stared for a minute then stormed ahead into the stone building.

In the main hall Danny took note that the fire was burning, and that Gabby had left a bubbling pot hanging at it. He took in that the place didn’t smell musty, something that no amount of his housekeepers cleaning had been able to fully disperse. It felt lived in. He’d hoped that he’d someday see it like this, he just hadn’t thought it would be so close to him being forced-

Danny felt the air rush from his lungs has he was physically forced, thrown up against the wall. Steve loomed, forearm pinning Danny at the neck. His eyes flared with anger, clearly itching for a fight. Something that Danny wouldn’t give him. Steve eased his hold for a moment and then forced Danny back against the wall again. “Why can’t this be _our_ home?” The words were hissed through Steve’s teeth.

“Our home?” Danny choked out, incredulous. “Both of us?”

“Yes.” The word was pained. “Both of us.”

“There is no _us_. This is the home your father built for your mother. It is yours. It doesn’t belong to _us_.” Danny still hadn’t tried to move from where Steve had pinned him. It was his life now, being where someone else put him.

“No.” The word was soft, faint. The anger drained from Steve’s eyes. He leaned in and kissed Danny. Gently. So gently it took a heartbeat for Danny to register what was happening, and another to kiss Steve back.

The arm pinning him to the wall turned and fingers caressed at his neck. He felt Steve’s other hand move to the back of Danny’s neck, no pressure, just touch. The kiss was sweet, promising, and pleading, but it was not aggressive in the least, as if Danny could protest if he wanted.

His hands moved to Steve’s chest, as if of their own volition. Danny felt the kiss deepen, tongue licking at his lips, but it remained sweet and gentle. And Danny wanted that. Wanted to be treated as though, for once in his life, he were precious. He recognized that Steve had become precious to him as well. That when he was gone, he would miss the baffling man as much as he would miss his daughter. He poured that into the kiss he gave back.

Steve pulled back from Danny, both men panting lightly. “How can you kiss me like that and there be no us? How Danny?” But he didn’t let Danny answer. “My father built the house for my mother. But only the stone remains. What is inside, now, that I did for you, for Grace. I did this for us.”

Steve let go, took a step back when Danny didn’t answer immediately.

“I do not have the acumen to be Sheriff, and no offense, but it is clear that you cannot manage the land. You knew right away that my father had been murdered. You kept digging for proof, played their games, and stayed alive when my father couldn’t.” Steve took another step back, as though anticipating rejection.

“You grouped your army together and built a home. You haven’t been here for a week,” Danny smiled as he spoke, finally feeling as if he were where he should be. “And you’ve achieved more than I could in months.”

There was hope shining in Steve’s eyes when he took a small step forward. “I want _us_.”

Danny stepped forward and pulled Steve into a more aggressive kiss.


	17. Scion

She was going to die. She knew. He stood over her, smug, pompous, dripping with her blood. She couldn’t call out. She’d sent servants to bed before he’d come, there were things they couldn’t know, things they would talk about. And now she would die with no help at all. She’d left herself alone at his mercy. He knew everything she’d done.

The desperation built up in her as her blood pooled on the floor. She needed to do something, to save something even if it were not herself. She felt her hand move, saw the red life drip from her fingertips as the word was spelled out on the floor.

_Scion_

*~*~*

Steve was riding, looking over the land with new eyes. Comfortable in the idea of being a land owner. Excited to help his people, to train them, feed them, make better lives for all of them, and for him and Danny.

He shifted in the saddle, sore in interesting places. Places he looked forward to being sore in again. He smiled at the thought of Danny, naked, sweating, holding him down. He very much looked forward to every night to come.

The sound of hooves came from the distance. Drawing closer before Steve could see the first rider crest the hill to his North. He smiled as Lady Jamison’s guard, including Chin and Kono, drew near. His smile dropped when their weapons were drawn.

“You are under arrest M’Garrett.” Steve recognized the man speaking as a Noshimuri.

“On what charges? And where is the sheriff if this is an arrest?”

“It’s not a matter for the sheriff.” The title was spit out with derision. “When you murder Her Ladyship, the punishment falls to her guard.”

“Surrender your weapons, Steve.” Chin edged close, spoke clearly. “I will hold you in the cells until your trial is arranged.”

Steve began disarming himself as he watched Chin nod to his cousin and saw her ride off in the direction of A’a.


	18. Bandog

Chin had played along with arresting Steve, or at least Steve hoped he was. He asked to see the Lady’s body, Michael Noshimuri laughed. He asked what proof they had that he had done it. Noshimuri laughed some more.

“We should kill him now.” Steve heard the whisper come from behind him as he was lead to the lowest part of the Jamison keep.

“We cannot. He refused her request to become sheriff. He will have told Williams. Williams will demand proof and a trial before Lord Edwards.” Noshimuri didn’t whisper, but Steve was certain that the words wouldn’t have carried far enough ahead for Chin to hear.

“Then we will take care of Williams.”

There was no answer to that.

Steve felt panic grip him. Not for his own situation, but he needed to warn Danny. Danny was smart, and quick, Steve didn’t doubt he could hold his own in a fight. But an arrow shot from across a field, someone he thought was a friend greeting him with a knife in hand, thirty men descending on A’a to kill him without mercy… Danny would not …

Chin unlocked a gate in front of him. Steve walked through it then felt his arm grasped and he was propelled forward as the gate slammed shut. 

Noshimuri’s voice rang through the cellars. “Kelly?” 

Steve was shoved around a corner and up against a wall. “Did you do it?” Steve just blinked at Chin. “Did you kill her?”

“No.”

Chin shoved Steve into a cell that was partially out of sight of Noshimuri and his men. “Where were you last night?”

“In bed.” Steve leaned until he could see Michael’s rage filled face.

“Alone? Is there a whore who can vouch for you?”

Steve just shook his head. He watched Chin turn towards the guard, both his hands wide from his body, holding two matching sets of keys. “I will hold him safe until Lord Edwards arrives for trial. I will not give the M’Garrett up to you or to Wo Fat.”

“I will kill you, Kelly.”

“You can try.”

Steve could see Noshimuri, watched his impotent rage as Chin sat on the floor in the space between the gate and the cell. There was no way that an arrow or crossbow could be fired to kill Steve, and Chin had cover he could take as well. 

“You are a bandog, Chin Ho Kelly. You have set your own chain and may bark in here as loud as you want. But you and the M’Garrett will rot in here before Lord Edwards arrives!”


	19. Multifarious

Kono had found Danny in the village. He was presiding over the punishment of a thief. The man had stolen to feed his family. It was a deplorable state of affairs, but he’d stolen none the less, and it was Danny’s place to mete out the sentence.

He was locking the man into the stocks when she came racing into town. He looked up as she spotted him, noted the panic in her face and left the man unlocked to get to her quickly.

“What happened?”

She slid off the horse gracefully. “Steve has been arrested. Lady Jamison was killed last night and they have arrested Steve.”

“Who? Who has that authority?”

“They are saying the guard has authority. They have taken him to her dungeon.”

“He will be killed.” Danny scanned around the group of people who were gathering. 

“No. Chin is with him, he has a plan to keep him safe until Lord Edwards arrives.”

“Wo Fat won’t let Edwards know about it until it’s done. Duke?” Danny spotted the man and called him over. “Your son, send him on the fastest horse we have to Lord Edwards. Tell him Lady Jamison has been murdered and he is needed immediately. Do not let him wait an hour before they head back here. And they need to bring men as well. And avoid the gamekeeper’s men at all costs.” Duke nodded at Danny. “Go.”

Danny looked around again, judging who he could trust versus who would report back to Wo Fat or Lady Jamison’s guards. He sorted out the people, sent some on their way. Locked up his thief and sent food to the man’s family. When he had himself surrounded by people he could trust, he asked Kono for more details.

*~*~*

The time he spent waiting for Stan was interminable. Multifarious in his mind, but torturous. 

Danny had drawn together the handful of men he knew he could count on, farmers and villagers. They waited about a mile from Lady Jamison’s keep, on the road that Lord Edwards would take to get there. Danny felt tethered and undermanned.

He’d listened to Kono’s description of Her Ladyship’s dead body. He wanted to see for himself, wanted to look over the corpse. He hoped that the body hadn’t been cleaned yet. The servants had been sent from the keep, Wo Fat’s men were occupying to the best of Danny’s knowledge, but anything could be happening within the walls.

He trusted in Steve and Chin’s abilities to keep themselves alive. The way Kono described the arrest, it was clear that the guard had a plan, Danny hoped it was a good one. Both men could be dead by the time Danny could get into the keep.

His mind kept playing over the night before. Steve and his _us_ , and how much, how very much, Danny wanted that _us_ too. How good it felt to have Steve’s skin against his own. How good it felt to have someone want him. How good it was to taste and tease and watch Steve come apart for him.

They were ready, and itching to move when they heard his former wife’s new husband riding toward them.


	20. Sublunary

Danny gave as much information to the man his wife had chosen over him as he could while they rode that last mile. He was grateful that the man seemed to respect his words and opinions, grateful that the lord had come to his aid so quickly.

The portcullis was opened at the sight of Lord Edwards’ standard. The twenty men he brought with him probably had some bearing on the matter too. Edwards had another fifty men that were assembling and leaving an hour after he had left. That reinforcements were coming soothed some of Danny’s anxiety as well.

“I would like to see Her Ladyship’s remains.” Edwards sounded appropriately haughty. Danny was a little impressed.

“Of course, my lord.” Wo Fat came across as smug, but toadying as well. “She is where I found her this morning. We did not touch her in anticipation of your arrival.”

“How is that possible?” Edwards looked down his nose at the gamekeeper, and Danny found himself even more impressed. “You didn’t bother to inform me of her death. The sheriff did, and I’m told that you did not inform him either.”

“I was told that one of Her Ladyship’s guard had ridden off to inform him.” Wo Fat met Danny’s gaze in what the sheriff was sure he was supposed to take as intimidation. “We’ve been expecting Sheriff Williams all day. What delayed you?”

“Fear for my own safety in a place where a gamekeeper has access to a lady’s home at all hours and has more armed men than the Sheriff on his payroll.” Danny didn’t lose eye contact. “I believe you would feel the same if the situations were reversed.”

Wo Fat shrugged, but led them into Lady Jamison’s sitting room.

Danny was repulsed at the lack of respect shown for the woman. They hadn’t moved her at all. Wo Fat had left her to rot in her own blood where she had fallen, clutching her own knife in her left hand. He bent over the body as Lord Edwards stood stunned just inside the door. Of course if they had moved her, cleaned her body for burial, he wouldn’t have the proof he was looking at.

“This is it? This is all you have for holding the M’Garrett?” Danny looked up at Wo Fat. Waited.

“She wrote _scion_ in her own blood. You can see. Her last breath was spent telling you who killed her. I have heard her refer to the M’Garrett as the scion many times. And he has no one to vouch for his whereabouts last night. That is the proof I have.”

Danny stood, and walked over to where Wo Fat stood with Lord Edwards. “I’m sure that you noticed, Lord Edwards, in the time you had spent in Her Ladyship’s company, that she favored her left hand over her right. It is suspicious that she would write the word with her right hand. It is also suspicious that there appears to be a bloody outline of fingers on the back of her hand, but no blood on the palm of her left. As though someone used her hand to write the word.” He eyed the gamekeeper, accusing him of the murder without words.

Then Danny took a deep breath, knowing that while it proved that someone else used Lady Jamison’s hand to write the word, it did not clear Steve of the murder. “The M’Garrett was with me last night.”

Wo Fat began to speak, Danny cut him off. Not wanting to skirt the issue, knowing too, what it could mean to him personally. “He was in my bed, all night. I am certain I kept him too worn out to travel and murder then be back before dawn.” 

Lord Edwards signaled his men to head for the cells.

*~*~*

“You told them?” Steve whispered as he stood next to Danny while Wo Fat was stripped of the trappings he’d surrounded himself with that far exceeded what a gamekeeper should have.

“You would still be in the dungeon if I hadn’t. On trial for murder.”

“But this could… He could keep Grace away from you.”

Danny nodded. “I think better of him than that. But nothing, heavenly or sublunary, would keep me from my daughter.”

Steve let out a breath he’d been holding, nodded in response to Danny’s words.

“From Grace, or from us.” He clasped Steve’s hand in his own.


	21. Ebullient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the explicit chapter. ;)

Lips, teeth, tongue. Bruises sucked into his skin. Danny ebullient. He couldn’t stop touching Steve. Needing Steve. He cried out as Steve’s mouth covered his erection.

Being with this man had so quickly become everything to Danny. Even if they ended up squatting on Lord Edward’s land so he could get glimpses of his daughter growing, he’d take it. And he felt secure knowing that Steve would be by his side.

More secure than he’d ever felt about Rachel. Even when he thought he was sure of her. As Steve’s fingers teased his thighs to spread, trailed over his balls and toward his puckered opening he was absolutely certain in the man’s character and tenacity.

His hands moved to Steve’s hair as he struggled not to thrust into the perfect hot… wet… everything. He felt Steve touch him where he had touched Steve the night before. Where he had pushed into Steve with spit and a need to please them both. Where he had fucked Steve until they’d both found release. And he wanted that. Was excited and afraid, but wanted it. Wanted Steve to push into his body, to take the same heat and tight and home that Danny had found in Steve. He wanted to be fucked until Steve went over the edge.

Steve’s lips pulled off him, and Danny hated the loss, but enjoyed the debauched look that Steve had with swollen lips and spittle hovering over his cock. “I want this.” Steve whispered as if he were speaking directly to Danny’s erection. “I want to feel you getting there, to hear the noises, to watch you explode for me, just me.” Steve’s smile was outright possessive. “Then I’ll take this juice, your juice, and I’ll use it to spread you open, use it to reach inside you with my fingers, and then I’ll spread it on me.” 

His words were a promise to Danny’s dick, and Danny felt it shudder through his whole body.

“Yes, I’ll spread it on me and then I’ll move so deep inside you. You will feel nothing but me. In you… on you… You will know how good I felt last night when you fucked me. How good I want to feel when you fuck me tomorrow. For … ever.”

His glance moved up Danny’s body. When he finally met Danny’s eyes, his face was full of need and adoration and ownership of Danny, body and soul.

“Give me this.” A large calloused hand wrapped around Danny’s cock. “I want this.” The hand stroked and everything inside Danny tightened. “Let me fuck you.” Danny exploded all over Steve after that, it could have been moments or hours, it was all Steve and it didn’t matter how long it took, but it was urgent to feel more, and to have Steve fulfil his promise.

Danny was still heaving his breath when he realized that Steve was already doing what he said he would. There were knuckles brushing against his outer skin, and long fingers pushing and pulling inside him. Touching and reaching, stroking and …” _OH FUCK YES!_ ” 

Steve’s eyes seemed glued, watching part of his own body move in and out of Danny’s. Fascinated. It was everything, and Danny wanted more. “Steve?” The word was breathy and pathetic to his own ears, but it made Steve smile and look up. “Now, please. Now.”

Then the fingers were gone. He felt his legs pushed wider, his hips were lifted, and then the blunt tip of Steve was pushing into him. Perfect, hot, filling, … perfect.

Steve closed his eyes and groaned as Danny felt him move further. “So…”

“Yeah, babe.” Danny reached a hand out to touch Steve. “It is.”

It wasn’t long before Steve couldn’t hold back, couldn’t stop himself from slamming into Danny’s body, driving himself home. Danny couldn’t turn away from the perfection of Steve’s body in motion and the look of ecstasy on his face. When Steve collapsed against him, Danny just held on, feeling the man’s heartbeat against his chest.


	22. Gewgaw

“He will be back.” Danny felt sure as he sat at lunch with Steve, Chin, and Kono. Wo Fat was not gone for good. They couldn’t prove that he had killed Lady Jamison, and he had slipped away in the night before they could begin to charge him. He’d burned his own home to the ground. Danny felt sure that Wo Fat would want payback for that.

“We need to find him. We need to prove that he killed my father.” Steve was still angry, he’d taken a search party out looking for the man without fruition.

“I may have that.” Charlie spoke up from the door, showing some paper he held in his hand. “I was looking through a book your father had given me, to prepare a lesson. He left this.” He placed the letter in Steve’s hand. “I read it before I realized what it was.”

Steve began reading then stood up abruptly, his chair falling back against the floor. He read further while the four others watched him. A minute or two of silence later, Steve turned on his heel and ran up the stairs. Steve recognized the sound of the new door closing on the east room.

“What was on the paper Charlie?” Danny stood, righted Steve’s chair and motioned for the teacher to take a seat.

“It was notes in his father’s hand. He talks about Wo Fat coming up too far, he seemed to think that the man had something to hold over Lady Jamison. That they were conspiring together. Men working for him were moved to report to Wo Fat, men loyal to him were killed in seeming accidents. He mentioned a few names. She had asked him to entail the property to the title and he said no. The M’Garrett expected that he would be killed soon, and he mentioned that his wife’s death was not an accident. That he sent his children off for their safety.” Charlie stated what he’d read as matter-of-factly as he could manage.

Kono’s eyes went wide while Chin thumped a fist on the table. Danny’s gaze went up the stairs as though he could see Steve’s suffering through the stone and wood.

“He had no place to turn.” Charlie continued. “He could not go to Her Ladyship’s overlord. He had nothing specific on her…”

“Except her doting on a man that everyone in Oahu thought was her low born lover.” Danny finished with his own thoughts. Wo Fat would definitely be back if this were something that he had been planning for nearly two decades.

Steve appeared at the top of the stairs. “Could I…” His voice trailed off as he looked at Danny and gestured to the hall behind him. 

Danny nodded. The rest stood to go about their duties while Danny climbed the stairs to give Steve whatever comfort he could.

“He told you.” It wasn’t a question. Danny didn’t answer. “He knew they were coming and he…”

“He did everything he could to keep the people he loved safe. He…”

Steve looked up from the hands he had tightly fisted. “He would have liked you. Not at first, but…” Steve smiled through the new pain.

“I take some getting used to.” Danny sat next to him on the bed, placed a palm on his knee.

“It’s just a gewgaw, but..” Steve took Danny’s hand in his, opened his other fist to show his father’s ring. The crest of the Sheriff of O’ahu large and definitive on the ring. Danny had seen it before, but it belonged to the M’Garrett, he’d never put him on himself.

Steve slid the ring down Danny’s finger, sitting it perfectly in place. “Wo Fat killed my mother and my father. He will be back.” 

Danny took a deep breath and released it. He feared for Steve and a potentially vengeful state of mind.

Steve squeezed the beringed hand. “He will be back, and we will be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read through this. It means the world to me. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who listened to me whine, and then poked me to finish.
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you!


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